Police Detain Activists During Minsk March

Demonstrators holding a banner denouncing union with Russia during the October 29 march (Bymedia.net)
October 30, 2006 -- Police in Minsk briefly detained seven opposition activists during this year's annual demonstration to commemorate victims of the Stalinist purges.

About 500 people took part in the authorized march on October 29 from central Minsk to the site of Stalin-era mass executions on the city's outskirts.

Some carried banners saying: "No To Union With Russia!" and "Union With Russia Means Hunger and Killings!"

(AP, Belapan)

Russia And Belarus

The main Moscow-Minsk railway line(Tass)

TO MERGE OR NOT TO MERGE: For over a decade, Moscow and Minsk have been working on a project to form a single state, the Russia-Belarus Union. However, every time the two countries seem on the verge of making progress, one or the other steps back, leaving the entire effort in doubt.